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Monthly Archives: October 2014

This past year or so has brought on so many new things, I don’t even know where to begin. After that last post (I made those tacos, by the way. And they were awesome.), my small world went through some serious change – some good, sooooome not-so-much.

First, my lovely Grandpa passed away. He was such a wonderful man. So bright and happy and talented in so many ways. We had this tradition where we would go every Christmas to see Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. I don’t even know when that began, but it was a tradition that I hold dear to my heart and hope to pass on to my children. In addition, he would get me a nutcracker every year. Some elaborate, some simple – all beautiful. Every year as Christmas nears, my parents pull out our nutcrackers (my sister and mom have some, too) and they decorate our living room, looking down on us from the windowsills. The Christmas before he passed, we knew that his end was near. His body was beginning to fail him, and in some ways his spirit, too. But he made the efforts to be there and celebrate with us. That Christmas, I finally got to give him a nutcracker. Talk about emotions! I will never forget that moment, or any of the many wonderful moments preceding it. And I will never forget him – my joyous, banjo-playing, Santa Claus of a Grandpa.

Shortly after he passed, another big change made it’s way into our lives – Vishal and I found out we were pregnant! My pregnancy had it’s ups and downs, as did the birth. But that is the past… We have since had a beautiful, handsome, healthy baby boy. His middle name is William, in part after my Grandpa. You know that saying “time flies when you’re having fun”? Well time truly flies when you have a new little baby to look after! He is already 6 months old and seems to be going through his own series of changes on the daily. A couple weeks ago he started sitting on his own… Just in the past week, two teeth have broken the surface of his gums AND he’s starting to crawl. It’s crazy being a new mom. Crazy wonderful, of course, but sometimes it’s also just plain crazy. I have been keeping track of his progress on a monthly basis and with weekly photographs, so there will be more on that later.

Another big change occurred last September when we discovered Vishal’s father has Stage 4 cancer in his lungs, liver, and bones. It was completely devastating for him and his family to say the least, particularly because his father did not seem to be exhibiting any signs or symptoms at the time. It was instead discovered during a routine x-ray. He began treatment in India immediately, and later continued his treatment when they moved out here to California permanently. We are so very fortunate and happy to still have him here with us now just over one year later. He has been able to meet our son, Dash, and they are just two peas in a pod! Additionally, they have moved nearby (a mere 20 minutes versus what could end up being 20 hours by plane – huge difference!) and so we have all been able to spend time with him and Vishal’s mom. Recently, they found out that the lesions are beginning to grow again in his liver, so they have decided to try out an experimental drug that will specifically target his cancer cells. We are really hopeful that this will work. In the meantime, his father has been very well taken care of by his mother and his symptoms and any side-effects from treatment have fortunately been minimized by homeopathic medicines. Here he is below earlier today in Monterrey with our little guy.